NOAA UHI Adjustments Are A Farce

Summer nighttime temperatures in Fort Collins, Colorado have increased more than three degrees F over the past sixty years.

Boulder is locate 40 miles away, at the same elevation and very similar geography. Yet Boulder has seen the opposite trend. Summer nights have cooled nearly four degrees F.

There is a seven degree discrepancy in trend between the two stations. The next graph overlays the two at the same scale. Nights in Boulder used to be much warmer than Fort Collins, but now they are cooler.

The Fort Collins weather station started out in a farm, and is now in the middle of a very busy parking lot and bus terminal.

In 1937, the station was located in the middle of a farm.

By 1950, the area was starting to get built up.

By 1969, the city had surrounded the weather station.

Now it is in the middle of a parking lot in the middle of a large urban area, which has tripled in size over the past 60 years.

Fort Collins has a major UHI problem. So how does NOAA handle it? They deduct less than one degree F, when they probably should be deducting closer to 7F.

NOAA adjustments are a farce. They massively over adjust for TOBS, and massively under adjust for UHI – thus corrupting the temperature record beyond comprehension. But it gets worse. Rather than correcting the broken Fort Collins temperatures, they massively corrupt the Boulder temperatures.

The fact that the fort Collins adjustment is smaller than what is claimed to be expected from UHI ignores the fact that adjustments and are made to take into account a number of factors, do do with changes in instrumentation, changes of the site or around the site changes in time of day that measurements may be taken and human factors with different individuals recording measurements over time etc.

Jennifer Marohasy spent much time and effort pointing to apparently anomalous drops in temperatures at Rutherglen and Deniliquin in Aistralia. Then she discovered that the drops concided wiht the opening of a local irrigation scheme.

In the case of Fort Collins, construction of the nearby Horsetooth reservoir (see google maps) began in 1949. Also just to the south of the trees shown in the image of the weather sttion is a lagoon. These features could easily partially offset effects of warming by buildup around the station.

Out of the hundreds of weather stations involved in building up a national adjustment chart, some apparently anomalous sites can always be found.

You need to examine why such anomalies may occur.

They do not mean that the continent wide temperature adjustment process is flawed.

In the case of Australia, while skeptics complain about the adjustment homogenisation process, there is in fact very little differnce between the raw and adjusted data, especially after 1950.

I live in St Cloud, MN. We have temp records going way back. The most recent 25 years was actually 0ne tenth of a degree colder than 1900 – 1924. I have alerted the news media to this fact and have gotten nothing but silence. At the same time, the past 100 years, our c02 level has risen 33%, and no temp change.. Still waiting for the Greenhouse…..

Concerning the measured vs adjusted temps for Boulder, I went through all the hard data from 1879 to March 2016 and I found that there was only 2 measurements of 100/+ degrees Fahrenheit from 1897-1947, but 14 measurements of 100/+ degrees Fahrenheit from 1947-1954, but then again only 12 measurements of 100/+ from 1954-2016. Could the 1947-1954 anomaly be reason enough to explain such a discrepancy in measured vs adjusted? Perhaps during this period the hard data was being recorded incorrectly?

So I decided to do a little investigation and this is what I came up with.

I took July 1947 max temps and min temps for each day and added them together to get 4774.85, which I divided by 62 to give me an average of 77.01 Fahrenheit, or 25.00 Celsius.

I then used the raw data compiled by Berkeley Earth from Colorado Springs which is 97.2 miles (156k’s) away from Boulder to compare average temps and the results are very interesting indeed. So the average temp for the month of July 1947 in Colorado Springs was 21.233.

Now Berkeley uses raw data from one or more data sets and it does provide an adjusted data set that may have been impacted because of biases and that measurement was 21.239. Now the best thing about Berkeley Earth is that it also looks at the regional temperature expectation and it does this through combining multiple weather station readings and that measurement was 21.577. The link is below because I know you will want to clarify my results and they are 100% accurate as I triple checked them.

So in conclusion the average temp using raw data from Boulder for the month of July 1947 was 25.00, but just 156k’s down the road the average temp using raw data from Colorado Springs for the month of July 1974 was 21.33.

Oh one more thing, the average temp for July 1947 in Fort Collins was 21.05. Now when that is compared with Colorado Springs of 21.233 they seem extremely similar. So how can Boulder have an average of 25? Seems to me that either A. the instrument was faulty, or B. we had inaccurate readings and recordings from human error.

Mountain weather conditions change regularly, even at the same elevation. Micro climate issues all over, with some areas in a drive I do regularly consistently cooler at 5100 and 1 to 2 degrees warmer at about 5500 a couple of miles away.

The Boulder chart starts in the mid 1950s, what does 1947 have to do with this post. You claim that Boulder was way to high in 1947? The decline in Boulder T was rock steady until the mid 1970s. You are merely speculating of a systematic error in recording for a long duration.

All these changes should NEVER be generic algorithms based on surrounding stations, but be specific and based on each station sighting history and careful examination of the known facts in each. (And tested by experiment when possible) True, the Boulder cooling over a long period should be explained as well, but that matches the strong NH cooling we had during that time period.

The cool Fort Collins may well be …

Fort Collins gets cold air spilling across from Wyoming.

Reply

Lived_in_Denver says:

May 22, 2016 at 8:12 pm

Been there, experienced THAT! IN fact, Ft. Collins gets it right in the face when an “Alberta Clipper” (a cold, windy blizzard from the north) heads south through Wyoming.

As we can clearly see there is no significant difference in the RAW temps between the 3 measuring stations. As I said before I think there may have been some anomaly that caused such crazy readings in Boulder during that time span and I am okay with NOAA adjusting the temps to match Fort Collins and Colorado Springs.

Well obviously I can’t go back to July 1947, so I can only put forth a theory as to why the temps were so conflicting. If you look at the data I have presented objectively you will come to the same conclusion. But somehow I don’t think you will.

From 1947 until 1970, the official observations of weather in Boulder were made under the direction of the Boulder fire chief, at the central fire station. The Boulder Fire Department also maintained a weather station at the South Side Fire Station starting in July 1958. Prior to 1947, observations were made from the homes of volunteering citizens of Boulder. (Cf. station history in BHS 351 b1 f6.).From the description of Voluntary oberserver’s meteorological record, Boulder, Colo. ledgers 1917-1975. (Boulder Public Library). WorldCat record id: 427276002Established in the Department of Agriculture by an act of October 1, 1890 (26 Stat. 653). The Weather Bureau provided basic weather service in support of federal agencies and the general public, including weather forecasting and collecting, and disseminating temperature, rainfall, and climatic data for the United States. The Bureau was abolished By Department of Commerce Organization Order 25-5A, effective October 9, 1970. Successor agencies include: National Weather Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce. National Archives Guide to Federal Records – Records of the Weather Bureau http://www.archives.gov (Retrieved May 4, 2009)From the description of U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Weather Bureau records, 1891-1981. (University of Georgia). WorldCat record id: 320129175According to the station history appended to this article, ” the first recorded weather observations for Boulder were made for several months in 1893 to 1895.” Records are for the most part complete since 1897. Observation stations were located in the western part of the city until 1912, near the University of Colorado campus until 1936, and on campus until 1947. Since 1947, observations were made by the Boulder Fire Dept., under the direction of the Fire Chief.From the description of Climatological summary: Boulder, Colorado, 1931-1960 [ca. 1961]. (Boulder Public Library). WorldCat record id: 427275741According to the station history in folder 6, Boulder weather observations were made from the roof of the old Central Fire Station at the western edge of the main business district from 1947 until 1958, when they were taken on the grounds of the new Central Fire Station north of the business district. The Boulder Fire Department also maintained a weather station at the South Side Fire Station since July 1958.From the description of Boulder (Colo.) annual climatological summary tables 1958- 1965. (Boulder Public Library). WorldCat record id: 427275796According to the station history in folder 6, starting in 1958 the official observations of weather in Boulder were made under the direction of the fire chief on the grounds of the new Central Fire Station north of the business district. The Boulder Fire Department also maintained a weather station at the South Side Fire Station starting July 1958. Responsible fire chiefs were F. J. Johnson (1956-Nov. 1960) and George Morse (Dec. 1960- Aug. 1965).Observations were taken by the following fire chiefs after Aug. 1965: R. K. McCutcheon (Oct. 1965-May 1966), Kenneth J. Nicholas (June 1966-Nov. 1969), and P. J. Ringleman (Jan.-Mar. 1970).From the description of Boulder (Colo.) record of climatological observations tables 1958-1970. (Boulder Public Library). WorldCat record id: 427275804

The decline in Boulder is very steady for decades. By 1968 (still 1.5 C warmer then Fort Collins) they had only dropped about 50 percent of their eventual drop by the mid 1970s. There was no step change! You are purely speculating.

Before you go analyzing this detail, you need to realize several things:

First, temperatures are watched in anomalies because that is the only way you can compare locations. If there was a problem with the equipment, the equipment would have a consistent error – e.g. always +2 degrees or something. There is no step change in the data presented on Boulder, above, which leads me to believe that the equipment was taken care of and calibrated to an external source.

Second, the Boulder temperature apparatus isn’t in some field, it’s been maintained by UC Boulder. This is where a lot of the Colorado climate announcements come from. I have doubts that they have been mishandling the recording, but I’m always open to any evidence you may have.

Third, Boulder’s incorporated area is primarily in a crested valley that buffers against cold air from the north. It tends to be a few degrees F warmer in most cases. For instance, right now it is 57.5 F where I am and 62.2 F in Boulder CO. I am about 50km from Boulder, which is 1/3rd of the distance you say is too short to be that different, temperature-wise. (I am also within 10m of elevation.)

So, the fact that now the records say that there is little difference between Ft Collins, Colorado Springs, and Boulder is good reason to be suspicious that the Boulder readings are being maladjusted. Mountain climate is no joke.

Wind chill index is very misleading and confuses a lot of people. For example pull up your sleeve and blow on your arm – it gets colder right, but has the air temp dropped at all in the room? Well of course not. Wind removes energy from a surface. Quite complex and not many people understand it.

The prevailing winds in Ft Collins and Colorado Springs are from the north all year round. Both have significant urban development to the north of their weather stations.

However, the prevailing winds in Boulder are from the west in winter, and since the weather station is on the western side of Boulder, (checked on GoogleEarth) and this western side is still totally exposed to those NATURAL prevailing winds off the mountains.

The differences are to do with prevailing winds and the effect of urban growth on those winds.

hahahahaha so 3 months of the year when the wind blows west is the reason why the temps are so much higher. Oh you must have also forgotten that Boulder weather observations were made from the roof of the old Central Fire Station at the western edge of the main business district from 1947 until 1958, when they were taken on the grounds of the new Central Fire Station north of the business district. hahaha nice work hahaha.

Now the for the question. Why are Fort Collins and Colorado Springs very similar, but Boulder ranges from 2-7 degrees in difference each month. Averaged out over the whole year it is still 4-5 degrees warmer.